MANIFEST YOUR WAY TO TRADING SUCCESS
Manifest Your Way To Trading Success
In forex trading, as in life, it’s important to remain goal oriented and set yourself targets for what you want to achieve. It’s an excellent strategy for anyone who wants to see progress and who doesn’t want to stagnate… but, of course, it can be hard to remain focused on the task at hand and keep those goals firmly at the forefront of your mind at all times.
We live in a world of constant distraction and there’s always something clamouring for our attention, no matter what we’re doing. All too often, before we know it, we’ve completely lost track of what we actually had planned and suddenly our goals and targets seem even further away than they did before.
If this sounds like a familiar story to you, don’t despair! There’s a lot you can do to help you keep your eyes on the prize, whatever it is you’re aiming for… and the fine art of manifestation could well be a good place to begin.
But what exactly is manifestation?
One of the buzzwords of the last year or so, the idea behind manifestation is that you can bring what you want into existence by practising aspirational thinking and employing various techniques and meditations.
However, as a concept, manifestation isn’t new and its origins can be traced back to the 19th century New Thought spiritual movement, which came to the fore in the US at that time. Elements of the practice can be traced even further back than that, with links to Plato’s ideals and Greek philosophy, as well as Hinduism and Transcendentalism.
Part of the idea here is that what we think can have a direct influence on the material world and, as such, it’s possible to manifest your own reality with the power of thought.
For anyone interested in pursuing a lucrative career as an FX trader but who isn’t quite seeing the success they’d like to may well find that manifestation helps them get where they want to be.
As a trader, setting achievable goals over time will help you improve your performance, develop in your career and make positive, well thought-out changes to your trading strategy in line with how well or badly you’re doing.
Have you heard of SMART goals?
A little acronym you might want to keep in your mind when considering setting short and long-term goals is SMART… Specific Measurable Achievable Relevant Time-Bound.
This goal-setting strategy is a great one for traders to follow and should help you stay on track, important from a trading perspective because you’re essentially working for yourself, with no big boss to report to and no one to hold you accountable… no one except yourself, that is.
Broader goals may prove to be ineffective and rather intangible, so try to aim for something more specific that you can work towards, such as coming up with a minimum win rate within a set timeframe.
Measurable goals, meanwhile, are important because they give you a really good way of evaluating just how well or how badly you’re doing, so you can find areas ripe for improvement, all through the use of data that’s highly relevant to your daily trading.
However, it’s just as important to make sure that you set yourself achievable goals that you have a realistic chance of reaching. Aiming too high too soon could see you fail, so make sure that you’re giving yourself the best chance for success.
Relevancy is also key and focusing on this one will make sure that your broader goals become more attainable more quickly. Always make sure that your goals are in light with your personal growth and development as a trader… otherwise, you could just be wasting lots of valuable time.
And, finally, short-term goals can help you feel as though you’re progressing and you’ll find you meet your longer-term ambitions more effectively over time, as well.
Setting yourself a realistic timeframe to hit your goals can boost productivity, increase your confidence and sense of self-worth and give you the structure you need to really start seeing success as a trader.
So how can manifestation help you achieve your goals?
The art of manifestation involves practices like meditation, visualisation and mindfulness to help turn dreams into reality.
From the get-go, you’ll likely find that you learn an awful lot about yourself quite quickly and making the decision to try manifesting can show you immediately what you value most and what you most want to pursue in life.
The positive thinking aspect of manifestation can yield other benefits to you, aside from helping you visualise and attain your goals. Maintaining a positive outlook can help you ward off depression and help give you the resilience and skills you need to cope well in the face of stress… most important for forex traders!
An interesting study published in the Basic and Applied Social Psychology journal found that visualisation exercises were able to help tennis players perform better on the court and, by visualising winning, they consequently saw more wins than when they didn’t practise visualisation.
So it could certainly be worth trying your hand at manifestation if you do want to start driving more success your way.
Of course, it isn’t simply a matter of just sitting down to think happy thoughts and expecting good fortune to come your way… you will have to take practical and decisive steps towards achieving your goals in order for them to come to fruition, but manifestation could be one great weapon to have in your arsenal on your trading journey.
To help you get started with manifestation, here are a couple of techniques and exercises you could try. Who knows what the future may hold?
Visualisation
Visualisation uses all five of your senses (touch, taste, sight, smell and hearing) to help you imagine your future goals as if they were true right now.
It can be hard to master but it involves engaging all the senses and either envisioning the desirable future endpoint or envisioning the steps that need to be taken in order to get there.
To start, write down what it is you want in detail, engaging all your senses and including as much imagery and detail as possible to really bring your ambitions to life on the page. Do this once a day to really help keep your goals in mind.
There are lots of other ways to practise visualisation over on the Envision blog.
Positive affirmations
It’s easy to fall into the trap of negative thinking, even if you’re generally a positive and optimistic person, but you can really help yourself out if you start reciting positive affirmations to yourself on a regular basis. This can help you retrain your thought patterns and processes, helping you maintain a more positive outlook.
Positive affirmations that you could say to yourself include: I am successful, I am worthy of my dreams, I will succeed, I am excellent at what I do, I can do this, I am resilient, I am proud of myself… and so on!
You can use your affirmation statements to target a specific area, belief or personal behaviour you’d like to address, so have a think about which parts of your life you’d like to change… and take it from there.
Keep an intention journal
As traders, we’re well used to journaling and it represents an important part of the process for anyone who wants to see more wins than losses. But journaling can also help you make plans and stick to them, making it easier for you to break big jobs down and make them more achievable… which, in turn, will bring your dreams closer and closer to reality.
At the end of each day, write down three to five actions you want to complete the following day, whatever they may be. The key here is to make sure that your intentions are in line with what you value most, so your end goals are always in sight. Eyes on the prize, as they say!
Vision boarding
Something else you could try is vision boarding, where you sit down to create a tangible visual representation of whatever it is you’re trying to attract.
This really helps give us a clear direction of where we’re going and where we want to end up, so we can rid ourselves of unproductive distractions and really get down to business.
You can include whatever you like on these boards, but it could be helpful to start using images that inspire emotion within you and which align with your particular values.
Once you’ve finished the board, hang it somewhere prominent so you see it all the time, or perhaps consider making a digital board and keeping it somewhere on your phone or tablet. Before you know it, your trading career will be well on the way!
Looking for a new forex funding account? With us, you can trade when you like where you like… all you need is an internet connection! Get in touch with us today to find out more.
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